January 6th, 2011

To my daughter…

When you were little, we used to go for long walks in the woods, down to the creek, past the vine swing (remember the time you climbed up that giant tree by yourself?), and then out the other side. You stopped wanting to do that when you were eleven, but I was able to convince you to go one last time by suggesting that we play Lord of the Rings (Return of the King had just come out and you were infatuated with it). So into the woods we went: Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in search of the kidnapped hobbits, armed with sticks representing our swords, axes, and bows.

As we were walking along, we came across a tree with a knothole. I gave you a coin, which you hid in the hole. We camoflauged the hole with pieces of bark so noone else would find the coin.

I went looking for the tree with the hidden coin today, but couldn’t find it. It’s there, somewhere. Maybe we’ll be able to find it again, maybe not (definitely not if we don’t take the time to look). But we can remember it.